Shokat as-Sufi is a Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 town in the southern Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip

thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...

, south of Rafah

Rafah

Rafah , also known as Rafiah, is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. Located south of Gaza, Rafah's population of 71,003 is overwhelmingly made up of Palestinian refugees. Rafah camp and Tall as-Sultan form separate localities. Rafah is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate...

 and adjacent to the inoperable Yasser Arafat International Airport

Yasser Arafat International Airport

Yasser Arafat International Airport , formerly Gaza International Airport and Dahaniya International Airport, is located in the Gaza Strip, in Rafah close to the Egyptian border....

. It is one of the poorest localities in the Gaza Strip, and has underdeveloped infrastructure.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is the statistical organization under the umbrella of the Palestinian Cabinet of the Palestinian National Authority....

 (PCBS) census in 1997, Shokat as-Sufi had a population of 5,663 of which 90% were Palestinian refugee

Palestinian refugee

Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine, that after that war became the...

s. The gender make-up of the town was 49.3% male and 50.7% female. According to the PCBS, in mid-year 2006, it had a population of 8,094.

Shokat as-Sufi is governed by a municipal council

Municipality (Palestinian Authority)

In the territories administrated by the Palestinian Authority, a municipality is an administrative unit of local government similar to a city. They were established and decided after the creation of the Local Government Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994. All municipalities are...

of eleven members including the mayor, who since 2005 has been Mousa Abu Jlaidan.